


Company

by corvidkohai



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 06:16:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21132029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidkohai/pseuds/corvidkohai
Summary: Genesis and Angeal finally get to see Sephiroth after one of his visits to Hojo; they don’t like what they see.





	Company

Genesis was well aware that Sephiroth was hiding something. 

It was a secret he’d always held, one that he clutched close to his chest and allowed no one to see. It was how close he guarded it that soothed Genesis and allowed him to not pry; it was forgivable if he told absolutely no one, whereas they would have an issue if he was keeping it specifically from him and Angeal. He had thought that, perhaps, Sephiroth would come clean once the three of them began dating. But he hadn’t told Genesis, and Angeal said he hadn’t been let in on the secret either. Genesis didn’t  _ like _ Sephiroth keeping secrets, but if it was this precious to him, it must be serious. He could be understanding. He could wait until Sephiroth was ready—and he would be, sooner or later. 

Genesis knew it had something to do with Professor Hojo and his incessant visits to the lab. SOLDIERs went once a month for mako injections, no more and no less; if there was an emergency, they went to the infirmary, the same as any trooper. But Sephiroth went to see Hojo once a week, 1900 on Tuesdays like clockwork. Genesis didn’t know what they did down there, and he didn’t ask anymore, not after the first time when he’d been dismissed with an explanation of “routine procedures.” Sephiroth had refused to make eye contact as he said it, hiding behind the fall of his hair, and that was how Genesis knew he was lying, or at the very least, not telling the whole truth. Sephiroth was generally an honest man, especially with his friends, and this was how Genesis became certain it was a secret of some kind. 

Genesis and Angeal had both offered to be there after the appointments, with various excuses and dancing around the matter—even occasionally bluntly, just to try every method of persuasion. But Sephiroth shot them down without fail. 

This was odd, because the Firsts were always there for each other after mako injections—save Sephiroth’s own. But, as long as he was available, he was always there when Angeal and Genesis had their injections to help them through the aftermath. He just would not, under any circumstances, allow anyone else to do the same for him. 

The first time they were allowed to be around him, they hadn’t even realized what they were being allowed. It was not a Tuesday, which meant Sephiroth didn’t have an appointment scheduled. Sephiroth had disappeared from his office earlier that day after receiving a phone call, where he said nothing but a brief affirmative, before ending the call and leaving without a word. It’d left Genesis and Angeal baffled and looking at one another, because he seemed to have forgotten entirely that they were there, and it was unlike him not to be perfectly aware at all times. 

But they had planned on meeting at Sephiroth’s apartment for dinner that night; they rotated who would host so no one felt like their space was being taken over, and it was Sephiroth’s turn. So they were waiting in his apartment on his couch, as they had all long since exchanged keycards, when he returned. They hadn’t known where he had gone, or who the mysterious call was from; Sephiroth kept his PHS volume low enough that he could hardly hear it when it was pressed to his own ear, in interest of privacy around fellow SOLDIERs. They weren’t sure if he was still tending to whatever that call had been about, or if he had somewhere else to be after. 

But when he entered, reeking of antiseptic and mako, they understood immediately where he had been. It was impossible to be in the labs for any amount of time and not come out coated in their smell. 

Sephiroth looked like he was in a daze as he looked around his apartment, and stared at them for a long time before it seemed to compute that they were present. When he did, some recognition lit his eyes, but his face didn’t budge. Which was odd, because they had learned that, though his expressions were small, they were still generally present. He only rarely went completely dead-faced this way, and it wasn’t a good sign for whatever had happened in the labs. 

He came and sat with them, but said nothing, looking at some spot on the wall in front of him, though his eyes were a thousand miles away. 

“Sephiroth?” Angeal asked, tone soft. He didn’t quite dare to reach for the man. 

Sephiroth hummed in acknowledgement and turned to aim his eyes at Angeal, but seemed to see nothing. 

“Gaia to Sephiroth,” Genesis said, waving a hand in his face; Sephiroth’s eyes followed, and it was a good sign that he was at least tracking movement. “Goddess, but he’s hopeless. Wutai wouldn’t have called him a demon if he’d been like this; good thing they can’t see him now, or they’d be furious.”

It was a carefully sculpted remark. He was hitting everything Sephiroth hated to try and draw a reaction: his title as Demon of Wutai, an implication of weakness, and being talked about as if he wasn’t there. 

Any other time, both Genesis and Angeal knew they would have been able to watch Sephiroth’s eyes narrow, the careful sneer take his lips as he delivered an equally goading response. 

Instead, Sephiroth ducked his head, hiding behind his hair, though just poorly enough that they could see how he lowered his gaze. It was the most submissive either of them had ever seen him. 

It shocked and sickened Genesis. 

They waited in silence for a response, for anything—the submission to pass, a comment of any kind, simple eye contact. But nothing came. He didn’t respond any further, seemed to be waiting some further judgement, willing to allow whatever it was that would come next. It didn’t seem to occur to him to defend himself, but he had never before taken one of Genesis’s biting remarks lying down. 

“Did you not hear me?” Genesis snapped, the blood rushing in his ears—because he was starting to get angry now, downright furious, because of the implications of what he was seeing. “I called you hopeless. You deserve to be called a demon. You were one step away from failure in Wutai, and you only avoided that only because we were there to cover your mistakes.”

It was patently untrue. Sephiroth had done magnificently in the war, earned all the praise he got, and his lieutenants did help, but could hardly claim to be the real reason they had won. These were blatant lies, and on any other day, at any other time, Sephiroth would have called him on it, and insulted him for such a reach. 

Instead, he ducked his head lower in silence. 

The emotion at the forefront of Genesis’s mind was rage, blind rage, but it covered the deep seated fear of what might have happened in that lab. He’d always known that whatever it was had been happening for a while, from the way Sephiroth never seemed to question it and took it perfectly in stride. He hadn’t known what was happening on those visits, still didn’t know, but now he was certain that it was deeply  _ wrong _ , to reduce Sephiroth of all men to  _ this _ . This was an ingrained response, not something that could be taught to a man like Sephiroth in the time since the war. This Sephiroth more resembled a beaten dog, too afraid to even bite back, than the man he’d come to know, or even the front he presented to the world that most people never got past. And if Sephiroth was a beaten dog, it meant that someone had kicked him. Genesis was sure, now, that it was Hojo. 

He leapt from his seat and made for the door, seeing red, blood rushing in his ears. Because the anger was burning so hot in him, filling every inch of every vein, that he felt he would burst. He refused to take it out on Sephiroth, refused to make a bad situation worse. This needed a gentle touch, a soft hand, and Angeal was better at that than he was anyway. But if he remained in the room, he was going to lash out, and he would not kick a man while he was down. 

“Genesis!”

He was already out the door and starting down the hall, but he heard Angeal rush after him, not even bothering to close the door in his haste. 

It was unintended, but it meant Sephiroth could hear their conversation. 

“ _ No _ , Angeal, I can’t be there right now.”

“It isn’t like you to run away, Gen. He needs you.”

“No, he needs  _ you _ . He needs gentleness and tenderness and a soft touch and I am on the verge of lighting the whole Tower on fire.”

“ _ Gen—“ _

“Absolutely not, you  _ saw _ him! I don’t know what happened down there, I don’t know how long it has been happening, but it is not recent, and it is not harmless. This is not routine mako injections. This is sinister, and  _ hurting him _ , and—and fucked up in every way I can imagine. I don’t even  _ know _ what could have happened that would turn the man I know into  _ that _ , but that is not my Sephiroth. That is a shell, a mockery of the man I love. And I cannot make the parties responsible pay, I  _ know  _ that, but I am going to hurt  _ someone _ , anyone, and I refuse to let it be him. So go to him. Help him. I will come back when my temper is under control and I’m not afraid I’ll hurt him.”

Angeal softened as he spoke. He didn’t reach out to touch him, the way he usually would have, well aware that when Genesis got like this, even his outstretched hand would be knocked away. He nodded quietly. 

“Try not to hurt anyone important.”

Genesis laughed, but the sound was hard. 

“We’ll see.”

He turned and left, and Angeal went back to Sephiroth’s apartment, seeing now that he had left the door open. From the way Sephiroth’s eyes found him as soon as he entered, he had heard the conversation. Angeal only hoped he wouldn’t misconstrue it as sympathy, or pity, because he knew those would go over poorly, and knew further that Genesis wasn’t inclined toward either. 

“Are you angry with me, as well?” Sephiroth said quietly, his voice so low that Angeal almost couldn’t make it out. He said it so dead-eyed, so anticipatory, like he wouldn’t really believe anything but an affirmative, but it was so expected that it wouldn’t bother him. It did no harm to add more weight to a table that was already broken, after all; the damage had already been done. 

Angeal came and sat next to Sephiroth, unsure if he should touch him. He imagined that he had been poked and prodded enough today, though, so he kept his hands in his lap. 

“No, Sephiroth. Genesis isn’t mad at you either; he’s mad for you.”

Sephiroth blinked at him like this was incomprehensible. 

“Why?”

“Because someone hurt you, and you aren’t fighting back the way you usually would. If you won’t fight for yourself, he wants to fight for you. But he knows he can’t, and that frustrates him even more.”

Sephiroth was fighting to make sense of this in his haze, and didn’t seem to be making much progress. 

“Why would he bother?”

That broke Angeal’s heart, arguably more than the rest of it—that he didn’t think he was worth being fought for. 

“Because he loves you, Sephiroth.”

Sephiroth hummed in consideration, but didn’t seem to believe it to be true the way he usually did. 

Angeal settled in to try and figure out what the hell he could say to make this even a little better. 

Floors below them, Genesis turned the VR Room to its highest settings: the most enemies at the highest difficulty in the most difficult terrain. He fought without restraint, which meant he ended up breaking the room. Usually, by that point, he had cooled down, but he still felt like he was burning alive inside. So he moved to the next room. Until he broke that, and then moved to the next, and so on. By the time he ruined every room, he finally felt he could breathe. 

He went back upstairs to Sephiroth’s. It was early in the morning, now, nearing dawn. He knocked gently before easing the door open, to see Angeal whispering quietly to Sephiroth, who wasn’t responding, but seemed a little less dead inside. He looked up when Genesis entered, and he seemed to actually see him, this time. 

Genesis rushed over and dropped to his knees in front of Sephiroth, pulling him into a tight hug. 

“I will never leave you alone for this again, Sephiroth. We will find a way to help. We will find a way to make it hurt less. You aren’t alone, anymore.”

Angeal watched, hesitant still; he hadn’t dared to touch Sephiroth all night. But after a long moment, Sephiroth slowly returned the embrace, ducking his head to hide his face in Genesis’s neck. 

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. His fingers tightening in the back of Genesis’s shirt said enough. 


End file.
